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March 28, 2024, 11:29:19 AM

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Manchester...so much to answer for

Started by kalowski, April 05, 2022, 06:05:14 PM

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Bernice

Quote from: purlieu on April 12, 2022, 08:52:23 AMI dunno, Birmingham just seems to get on with it.

I think Birmingham's given up.

But yeah, thinking on it, it might just be Liverpool and Manchester thing.

jobotic

I hate City much more than I ever did United, although I still like to see both lose.

Manchester should be more modest, like New York City.


Joe Qunt

Feels like music isn't very working class anymore. As soon as you let middle class art students record a demo with daddy's money, you've fucked it.

purlieu

I'd say that's probably fairly true of guitar music, yeah.

buzby

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on April 08, 2022, 08:35:07 PMWhat confused me, and still does, is that Oasis sound nothing like the Beatles in any way and yet journos were so quick to draw a straight line between them. As I said on the #1s thread, I always go back to my dad's initial assessment of them: "a crap version of Slade". I pick up more of a vague Beatles tinge in the Stone Roses and Smiths than Oasis.
What was Oasis' All Around The World if it wasn't a lumpen attempt at a Beatles pastiche? The video made it abundantly clear what it was referencing.
QuoteIt was interesting reading Will Sergeant's memoir recently that he recalled others would tease him about his huge love of a lot of the Manchester bands around in the late 70s. Julian Cope gave him kudos for clicking onto Joy Division early doors. It never seemed to be returned, maybe the Manchester bands felt superior for staying on the indies, Buzzcocks and Magazine aside.
There was a lot of friendly rivalry between the punk/post-punk bands from Liverpool and Manchester. Roger Eagle, Bill Drummond and Tony Wilson were friends, and the bands associated with their clubs and labels regularly played at the other's venues. There was even the ill-fated Zoo Meets Factory Half-Way festival held in Leigh in August 1979.

The 'Beatle City' thing in Liverpool mostly kicked off in the early 80s, just as the Crucial Three/Eric's scene was dying down (Eric's itself having lost it's licence in 1980), which would be replaced by the mid-80s second wave of the likes of FGTH, Black and It's Immaterial. The actual Beatle City museum in Seel Street opened in 1984, to cash in on the tourists coming for the Garden Festival, reopening of the Albert Dock and the Tall Ships visit, as did the Cavern Walks shopping centre and the recreation of The Cavern in Mathew Street (the Beatle City museum only lasted 2 years, the next Beatles museum didn't open until 1990). The 'managed decline' approach from the government meant that Liverpool turned to tourism and self-mythologising as a means to generate income a lot earlier than it's neighbour/rival at the other end of the East Lancs.

Maybe if The Beatles hadn't existed we would now be seeing Bunnymen, Teardrops, Wah! or FGTH lyrics stencilled on shop shutters and end terrace walls in Liverpool (not that we see Beatles lyrics all over the place either - you are more likely to see football-related murals).

Quote from: Icehaven on April 07, 2022, 01:38:38 PMI was going to say "it's a shame all the Madchester nostalgia didn't kick in in time to stop the Hacienda from being levelled and turned into flats" but is it? It'd most likely have shut down by now anyway and be an Ikea or something.
Manchester certainly caught the self-mythologising bug in the wake of Madchester. The club itself never made enough money during it's lifetime for it to stay open without bleeding Factory and New Order dry. It's brand lives on now attatched to umpteen compilations, concerts featuring classical renditions of house tracks and crap merchandise thanks to Peter Hook buying the name off the receivers and his desire for money. He even gutted the building prior to demolition and auctioned pieces of it off.


Pauline Walnuts


Harry Badger

Some kind soul has shared 200gb of old school live mixes on here including fuckloads from the Hacienda and associated DJs like Graeme Park. Get stuck in.

Pauline Walnuts

Quote from: buzby on April 12, 2022, 11:00:03 AMHe even gutted the building prior to demolition and auctioned pieces of it off.



Not keeping the façade of the old Hacienda was incredible, I could understand filling in the old Cavern in 1974 as pop music was just that, everything had moved on, but by the 90s there was obviously money to be made of pop-nostalgia, and Manchester City Council didn't seem to want any.

poodlefaker

I moved from Birmingham to Manchester in the late 80s and the character of the two cities seemed very similar to me: quiet, reserved, dry humour. The difference between Mancunians and Liverpudlians seemed great. There was precious little swagger to the Smiths, Fall, Joy Div, New Order, Magazine, James, and the second-division Factory/Mcr bands. Clubs played a wide range of music - DJs such as Dave Haslam mixing The Go-Betweens with Public Enemy, Stooges, Guy Called Gerald, ACR etc.

It all changed when the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays broke through; playlists got narrower and it felt like everyone in Mcr turned into a Scouser overnight.

buzby

Quote from: Pauline Walnuts on April 12, 2022, 11:37:04 AMNot keeping the façade of the old Hacienda was incredible, I could understand filling in the old Cavern in 1974 as pop music was just that, everything had moved on, but by the 90s there was obviously money to be made of pop-nostalgia, and Manchester City Council didn't seem to want any.
It wasn't a listed building and keeping the façade would have severely limited the Crosby Homes' desire to cram in as many units as possible. Manchester council's planning committee has long been in the pocket of the developers (as has Liverpool's), and even if they weren't there's no legal means they could have used to refuse planning permission to force them to keep the facade.

Both Wilson and Hook agreed that it was better the whole thing was demolished rather than it's shell live on as something else. Wilson in particular was not a fan of nostalgia (something he regularly used to goad Liverpool over regarding The Beatles), so the balooning of it in Manchester since his death would no doubt have had him despairing.

kalowski

Quote from: poodlefaker on April 12, 2022, 12:00:29 PMIt all changed when the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays broke through; playlists got narrower and it felt like everyone in Mcr turned into a Scouser overnight.
This is a very well observed point and one many Mancunians would hate, but it's true.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Harry Badger on April 12, 2022, 11:19:59 AMSome kind soul has shared 200gb of old school live mixes on here including fuckloads from the Hacienda and associated DJs like Graeme Park. Get stuck in.

And it's also been ingested into archive.org.

https://archive.org/details/neilharrisonravelibrary

There's loads of other bits on there as well:
https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/1513185839488159749

The guy in the above thread is currently digitising a load of 90's NY music and club vhs' as well.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: poodlefaker on April 12, 2022, 12:00:29 PMI moved from Birmingham to Manchester in the late 80s and the character of the two cities seemed very similar to me: quiet, reserved, dry humour. The difference between Mancunians and Liverpudlians seemed great. There was precious little swagger to the Smiths, Fall, Joy Div, New Order, Magazine, James, and the second-division Factory/Mcr bands. Clubs played a wide range of music - DJs such as Dave Haslam mixing The Go-Betweens with Public Enemy, Stooges, Guy Called Gerald, ACR etc.

It all changed when the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays broke through; playlists got narrower and it felt like everyone in Mcr turned into a Scouser overnight.

Ha I remember listening to Radcliffe and Maconie interviewing someone from the midlands, it could well have been Jeff Lynne and them commenting afterwards that interviewing people from the midlands was comparatively hard work as getting important to admit their achievements was like getting blood out of a stone... a lot of "oh you co-produced x" followed by "oh yeah... that was me".

Brundle-Fly

I live in the heart of Kinksville, but you'd never know it. Not a single clue that they had even existed round 'ere, apart from spotting a wizened Ray Davies occasionally wandering about Highgate Village.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Joe Qunt on April 12, 2022, 09:58:59 AMFeels like music isn't very working class anymore. As soon as you let middle class art students record a demo with daddy's money, you've fucked it.

Some the best rock music has been made by middle class art students. eg: John Lennon, Brian Eno, Ian Dury, Jerry Dammers, Pete Townshend, Damon Albarn ,Jarvis Cocker, Lady Ga Ga...etc

purlieu

I think Jarvis would take offence to being called middle class.

Bernice

I think that exposes the problem with 'middle class art students' as a pejorative more than anything else

Kankurette

Kate Bush is also middle-class but not sure if she's an art student.

cosmic-hearse

Quote from: purlieu on April 12, 2022, 06:43:59 PMI think Jarvis would take offence to being called middle class.

I mean (with reference to the meme posted above), Cocker's dad has his own Wikipedia page!

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: purlieu on April 12, 2022, 06:43:59 PMI think Jarvis would take offence to being called middle class.

"Despite the famous song (Common People), when he was growing up his family were considered anything but common. After all, he was called Jarvis, his sister was Saskia, his grandfather had a successful DIY shop, and they lived in a big stone home set back from the road, which had once been the manor house. It was only when he went to Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design as a mature student at 25 that he discovered what really posh people were like - people such as the Greek girl in Common People who wanted to sleep with him, largely because of his accent. He says he found it quite liberating to discover he was working class, after all."

Hmmm...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/nov/24/jarvis-cocker-pulp-pop-music

purlieu

Interesting. I was basing my point on a book I read (Mark Sturdy's Truth and Beauty, I think?) in which he talked about working in a fish market as a teenager and such.

poodlefaker

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 12, 2022, 05:46:12 PMI live in the heart of Kinksville, but you'd never know it. Not a single clue that they had even existed round 'ere, apart from spotting a wizened Ray Davies occasionally wandering about Highgate Village.
Been in The Clissold Arms lately?

Jockice

Quote from: purlieu on April 12, 2022, 08:14:26 PMInteresting. I was basing my point on a book I read (Mark Sturdy's Truth and Beauty, I think?) in which he talked about working in a fish market as a teenager and such.

He did that but a lot of teenagers did part-time jobs to make a bit of extra cash in those days. Probably still do to this day. I did a paper round then stacked supermarket shelves myself. I think he ended up in the market cos his mum knew someone there.

Anyway he might have been from a fairly middle-class background (although Intake is by no means a posh area) but he was also from a single-parent family as his dad buggered off to Australia when the kids were young and his mum ended up emptying fruit machines as a job. So unless she purloined some of the proceeds I don't think there was a lot of spare cash about.

Joe Qunt

I stand by what I said because it's true.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Joe Qunt on April 12, 2022, 09:56:47 PMI stand by what I said because it's true.

So, the only good artists have to have this nebulous notion of 'working class authenticity'?

holyzombiejesus

It's a really pathetic and reductive way of looking at things. Absolute bullshit too.

Joe Qunt

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 12, 2022, 10:30:19 PMSo, the only good artists have to have this nebulous notion of 'working class authenticity'?

Yes.

The class identity of Jarvis' musical persona isn't really that coherent on the records- the narrator on most of His 'n' Hers lives in a 'working-class' world with a garage up the road on Babies and pink quilted eiderdowns in Acrylic Afternoons that more that 50 per cent of the country could identify with. In comparison, the narrator of I-Spy however seems to have been raised in a hellhole, to be from an extremely underpriveleged minority- "grass is something you smoke, birds are something you shag". It's this second type of lyric that made people question his credentials, its not quite beleivable that that character would end up going to art school.

Catalogue of ills

Quote from: Astronaut Omens on April 12, 2022, 11:18:19 PMThe class identity of Jarvis' musical persona isn't really that coherent on the records- the narrator on most of His 'n' Hers lives in a 'working-class' world with a garage up the road on Babies and pink quilted eiderdowns in Acrylic Afternoons that more that 50 per cent of the country could identify with. In comparison, the narrator of I-Spy however seems to have been raised in a hellhole, to be from an extremely underpriveleged minority- "grass is something you smoke, birds are something you shag". It's this second type of lyric that made people question his credentials, its not quite beleivable that that character would end up going to art school.

I'm happy to get shot down by @Jockice here, but I thought Jarvis was from Frecheville, which is a sort of hinterland between proper working class Sheffield and not working class Sheffield. I mean, it's not the same as being from Manor, like Reverend from Reverend and the Makers - that's as working class as it gets.